how do i put this?

Greetings to anybody reading this.

I'm glad to find a community of gamers that are older, and I look forward to reading your blogs.

For now, though, let me selfishly spout about myself.   I've been a gamer for as long as I consider myself having been consciously self aware, from a little before the Atari VCS came out.   I progressed from the protozoa consoles to computer games, such as Ultima II through Ultima IV, and Miner 2049er, to arcade games like Battlezone and 1942.   From there, I went on hiatus, and didn't get back into gaming until I started to waste time in the university arcade, with the introduction of Double Dragon, and then on to Street Fighter 2.   I still hang out with some of the people from those SF2 days.     That's where I learned the meaning of the term "Cheesey".     From there, I got into Nintendo consoles, then PC's, and Doom.   Doom was my world.   From there, it went on to Duke Nukem, and then Quake and Hexen.

While working toward a degree, I showed my classmates a new videogame called Mortal Kombat, and said, "hey, wouldn't it be an interesting study if we were to look at videogame violence and its effects on gamers?"   The project group members looked at me and called me an idiot.   The instructor just smiled and said, "nobody's ever done a study like that."   My group members unanimously voted to not do a study on something so trivial.   I also told my classmates that this computer technology called the internet was gonna be big.   They laughed, and told me to go wear a sign downtown.   I didn't go wear the sign downtown.   I wore it in the privacy of my apartment.

From Quake and its many derivatives, I went on to Command and Conquer.   If the definition of a black hole is that it has gravity so strong that even time cannot escape it, then Command and Conquer should qualify as a black hole.   PC gaming, what a rich experience.   Even today, the consoles still can not match what a PC can offer in terms of depth of gaming.   But I digress, as I moved from PC gaming back to the consoles, with the purchase of an Xbox.   The Xbox was modded, and subsequently banned from Live.   I picked up a PS2, along with several RPG's that had Fantasy and Quest as part of their titles, along with Tekkens and Virtua Fighters.   From there, it went back to PC games, with RTS's and FPS's, and now, now I'm back to consoles with the acqusition of an Xbox 360.

I went out to my workshop, and looked at all the game boxes I had for PC games.   StarCraft, Dungeon Keeper, Heretic, that game with Manny Calavera, Total Annihilation, and so many other rich experiences.   Lots of good memories I have in each of those boxes.

I'm currently playing Ninja Gaiden Black on my Xbox 360.   There have apparently been some updates to the compatibility file on the hard drive, so the game loads a hell of a lot faster, and looks just as great as it did on the Xbox.   I'm currently playing through Ninja Dog difficulty to get my bearings back.   Nothing beats having Ayane's onigiri in the middle of a tough battle.   (sarcasm for those who've actually finished the game before, encouragement for those who damn near broke their controllers trying to play through and just gave up when encountering Murai)  I love the missions.   They're all damn tough, because I'm so damn old and my reflexes ain't what they used to be.

I feel bad about the state of gaming today.   There are no killer must have games on the PC except for World of Warcraft.    I swore never to start on the game, I'd been burned on Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot, so you won't see me online there.    The state of console gaming is being stretched apart, as innovations are proprietary.   If there was a console that had the Wii's controller and the 360's horsepower and enlightened management of both content and delivery, I'd be all over it.   As I see it now, the market is getting fragmented.   Any time I think about it I fire up my PC and play a couple of rounds of Rise of Legends.

Anyways, I consider myself a console gamer right now.    I like being able to fire up the console, get into a game for an hour, and then save my progress and walk away.   I like being able to occasionally play against or with people online, as my schedule allows.

If you want, my gamertag on Live is JimmySplurge, add me as a friend if you ever want to play Dead or Alive 4 online.    I don't think I'd mind playing some Gears of War online as well, but I think I've had my fill of that game already.    I hope that Dice comes out with the next version of Rallisport Challenge, and that they don't screw it up as bad as Bizarre has with the Project Gotham series.  

Dice, I hope you're listening, because I bought and loved both Rallisport Challenges on the Xbox.   What you  did good was 60fps on both games and a great selection of tracks.   Keep the framerate up.  I'm one of those apes that tried to unlock all the skins for the cars by driving 271 miles in each car on that one track in Australia before I found out you could unlock 'em all by finishing the race programme.   My buddy Jherax still gives me crap over that.    I don't like PGR anymore because they go for detail over framerate.   Screw detail, I'd rather have framerate and control.   If you do Rallisport Challenge 3, keep doing the ghost races, those are always fun.

Anyways, this is my first blog post.   EVER.   Grammar sucks, content sucks worse, readability is in the toilet, but it's me.    Thanks for putting up with it, and hopefully I'll see you on Live.